One of NorCal's emerging 2010 prospects is 6-foot-5, 195-pound San Jose Valley Christian shooting guard Max Hooper. Hooper is one of the top shooters in his class, which has led to numerous schools taking notice of him.

Recently, Hooper took an unofficial visit to the Stanford campus, which he says went very well.

"First we did a tour of the campus, walked around, saw a lot of the important athletic buildings," Hooper said. "We walked around the football field, the gym, walked around the campus and had lunch. Then we went back to the basketball offices and I sat down with the coaching staff and talked to them for a while."

During the meeting, Hooper and the coaching staff were able to discuss a number of issues.

"I talked to the coaching staff about my goals as a player," Hooper said. "They gave me some feedback about how they were going to help me accomplish those goals. I'm a goal-oriented person, as are they, and that was the interesting part of the meeting.

"I shared my specific goals from my high school and AAU years with them and they gave me some feedback on that."

Of course, the Cardinal coaches also spent time selling their own basketball program.

"They told me it's a great place with a strong tradition that they're trying to build on with the new coaching staff," Hooper said. "They want to built a big time program. They also explained about all the players who have come out of the school and that it's a great academic institute."

While Hooper likes Stanford, there are also some other schools that are intriguing to him.

"I've been contacted by a lot of schools but ones that stand out would definitely be Stanford, Virginia, Cal, Duke and UCLA," Hooper said. "Those are the schools that I'm interested in."

Hooper will have a busy summer playing with EBO and looks to build on the successful effort he showed in the spring.

"I had some success in Houston and Vegas but I definitely want to step it up in the summer," he said. "Offensively I can expand my game and continue to shoot the ball from the outside but also diversify by scoring other ways. Defensively I can step it up a few notches and just continue to improve there."